Demo Day! The Story of our First Rehab

Day one of our first rehab and it’s demo day!  We got a LOT accomplished and we found a few things that were nice surprises, and others that were not so nice.

We almost waited too late to order the dumpster.  The first lesson we learned is that it’s important to stay in close contact with your contractor to see exactly when he wants the dumpster there.  The demo crew arrived, and there was no dumpster.  Luckily, we are working with a wonderful refuse company that got the dumpster there in a little over an hour.   Meanwhile, the demo crew got to work.

Surprises!

You never know what will happen when you start demoing an old house.  Surprises lurch everywhere, and this house is no exception.  The first surprise we found was that the whole house has hard wood floors in mint condition.  Sweet!  You always see that in all the rehab shows on TV, but you don’t expect it to happen to you.  You hope it will, but you also doubt that it will.  We totally lucked out because there are hardwood floors throughout the whole house.  This is true even in the part of the house that was added in 1967, and there is only one small spot that needs a little bit of repair work.  The remainder of the house, excluding the kitchen is perfect.  We will be able to refinish them for a dramatic effect.

Now for the bad news, there are two spots in the kitchen that have rotten floors.  The kitchen used to be a porch.  We’re not sure how this happened as it was under where the stove was sitting, unless the rot had begun while it was still a porch.  The house was built in 1923, so it may not have had an attached kitchen at that time.  Many kitchens were built as a separate structure because of the potential for fire.   We will have to replace one floor joist, and re-lay the kitchen floor.  The cost for replacing this small space is minimal.  We soldier on.

Do you have any helpful hints or ideas?  Do you have any questions or comments?  Please comment and write to us at [email protected].

Karen Rothermich